How do I get the default value for a field in a Django model?

Question

I have a Django model with some fields that have default values specified. I am looking to grab the default value for one of these fields for us later on in my code. Is there an easy way to grab a particular field's default value from a model?

score 87 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 19 '14 at 17:10

87

TheModel._meta.get_field('the_field').get_default()

answered Jun 19 '14 at 17:10

Collin Anderson

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This is the best answer. `.get_default()` is much more reliable, whereas `.default` does not always return the default (e.g. it might be `NOT_PROVIDED`). – Rufflewind Dec 25 '19 at 07:02

score 26 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 18 '16 at 23:35

26

As of Django 1.9.x you may use:

field = TheModel._meta.get_field('field_name')
default_value = field.get_default()

answered Mar 18 '16 at 23:35

Alex Panov

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score 17 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 20 '09 at 19:41

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You can get the field like this:

myfield = MyModel._meta.get_field_by_name('field_name')

and the default is just an attribute of the field:

myfield.default

answered Aug 20 '09 at 19:41

Daniel Roseman

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Anything with a _ is digging into the internals. See my question : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1011946/django-know-if-property-is-the-default-value – Paul Tarjan Sep 12 '09 at 05:54
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Nowadays the `get_field_by_name` method returns a tuple with the field object as its first item. – Adam May 09 '14 at 10:27
@PaulTarjan you are right, but the `_meta` is one of those well-established, not-too-likely to change elements. The general consensus is that it is OK to access a model's `_meta` directly. – Krystian Cybulski Oct 14 '14 at 21:20
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field.default might be a callable. Should use get_default() – Vajk Hermecz Jan 14 '15 at 17:19
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Down voting because this is currently out of date. – fluffels Nov 11 '15 at 17:15
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Down voted because it's currently out of date. Should do TheModel._meta.get_field('the_field').get_default() – TheMan Feb 21 '17 at 22:37
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`.default` does not always return the default (e.g. it might be `NOT_PROVIDED`). `.get_default()` is much more reliable. – Rufflewind Dec 25 '19 at 07:01

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 16 '20 at 08:03

2

if you don't want to write the field name explicitly, you can also do this: MyModel._meta.get_field(MyModel.field.field_name).default

answered Jun 16 '20 at 08:03

Elisha

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 21 '15 at 16:24

If you need the default values for more than one field (e.g. in some kind of reinitialization step) it may be worth to just instantiate a new temporary object of your model and use the field values from that object.

temp_obj = MyModel()
obj.field_1 = temp_obj.field_1 if cond_1 else 'foo'
...
obj.field_n = temp_obj.field_n if cond_n else 'bar'

Of course this is only worth it, if the temporary object can be constructed without further performance / dependency issues.

How do I get the default value for a field in a Django model?

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